To China and back in 3 days 🔫.

Before we took our “very successful” 2 day trip to The People’s Republic of China, there were couple of interesting and less interesting events that are worth mentioning. So let’s start from the beginning.

Easter and mini-camp with Borger/Buthe:

After we came back from Brazil we enjoyed Easter and also couple of well-deserved days without a ball or a gym. We also managed to get sick ☹ Maki more and Bara less. Luckily we were able to bounce back from the illnesses quickly because we had planned that right before our trip to China a German team Karla Borger and Britta Buthe would come and train with us in a Czech town of Pelhřimov at wonderful beach volleyball facilities of Beachwell. Karla and Britta have worked really hard over the past couple of years to become not only a top German team but also a top team on the FIVB circuit. Along we went with the saying „learn from the best“, and were super happy for all the training hours we got to spent with them. On the top of it, Karla and Britta are our long time friends so it a very pleasant visit.

Welcome to the RedBull Family Bara!

Another thing on our agenda last week was a slightly non-traditional press conference in Prague at our home beach courts of Vítkov. At this press conference Bara was officially introduced as a new member of the RedBull Family. Becoming a part of the RedBull Family is a not only „big deal“ for every athlete but also a big honor. We are happy for Bara, she worked hard to get where she is, and we would like to thank RedBull for believing in us and accompanying us on our beach volleyball journey. Right before we left for China we also stopped by a radio Radiožurnál, where we recorded a half an hour interview for a radio channel “Večerní host”. For those of you who can speak Czech and are interested in listening to what we had to say follow this link http://prehravac.rozhlas.cz/audio/3603900 :).

Mr. ankle:And now we finally get to our “successful” China trip. It all started on Tuesday when Bara noticed after the training a bite on her leg. The bite looked a little bit more red than usual, but still looked kind of harmless. We thought, ok spring is knocking on the door, all kind of animals are waking up even those that bite. But after a few hours after the bite Bara’s ankle started to look like as if a tarantula bit her. However we should add that neither one of us has ever seen a tarantula bite, but this is probably how we would picture it ☺ Bara’s ankle swelled up to a twice of its’ size with pulsing pain and red spots so Bara went to the emergency room on Wednesday with a suspicion of an allergic reaction. But we lost our humor fast right after Bara’s emergency room visit. She was told that she has a beginning infection of phlegmona ( inflammation spreading through tissue spaces over a large area and without definite limits.) She received strong regimen of antibiotics and an ointment. That was bad news, but we were told that the antibiotics will start working fast and her condition will improve, so we took the word for it and set off to two back to back tournaments in Xiamen and Fuzhou in China.

On our way to Xiamen, we spend a night in Dubai. After years of flying all over the world, we figured out that we fly east, it is easier if we spend a night somewhere in the middle. But when Bara took her sock off at a hotel in Dubai, her ankle looked really frightening and she also developed a fever. Here in Dubai, it was the first time when we started to second guess (especially Simon) if we should even continue our travel to China. After a deep pondering and many phone consolations with different doctors that we know, we decided to try and continue with our travel. We thought when worst comes to worst we can always go back. At this moment we were all just hoping that the antibiotics will finally start working and we could go on. The first tournament was supposed to stat in few days, so we still had some time.

After 5 days it was clear that we will not be able to participate at the tournaments. The swelling had gone down but the fever was still present and the whole leg from knee down was hurting. Bara was barely able to walk so any jumping or fast movements were definitely out of question and any chances that we would be able to play first match on Thursday quickly became zero. Simon called a team meeting where we went over all pros and cons and have definitely decided to return home. Simon said he has already made a mistake like this once (Maki was playing Prague Open 2015 while taking antibiotics) and that he will not ever risk like that again. Nobody wants that the infection spreads even more or that Bara would end up with long-term consequences. Health is the most important thing and the season is still long. So we packed our belongings and Monday night got on a plane destination home.

Some things can not be predicted and even that those things are very unpleasant (especially for Bara), we will push through together and get through it. Bara now has to go for a whole set of medical tests, so cross your fingers that she is fit soon! 🍀

So the moral of the story is:

• Follow your intuition (we could have turned around in Dubai when Bara’s condition rapidly deteriorated and could have saved 2 other exhausting flights Dubai-HongKong-Xiamen-HongKong-Dubai)

• Do not plan to far ahead, things can go change very quickly

• Skip the next year’s tournament in Xiamen, because we are starting to run out of left ankles (Maki injured her left ankle last year in Ximane Open)

• You can survive 30 hours on a plan in 3 days… but that is calling it close man

• It is impossible to eat 16 days of supply of tuna (we packed) over 2 days in China